We hold an annual banquet (April) to celebrate science in central Illinois. We encourage you to print and complete the linked reservation form.
Our 2025 banquet will be held on April 18 (Friday at the Cater Inn. Dinner starts at 6:30. The facility opens for socializing at 6 p.m. We look forward to seeing you there. Reservation form is linked above for you to print and mail to us.
We provide a formal award to our scholarship winner for the year.
Our guest speaker is Sheldon Schafer. Sheldon (M.S. in Planetarium Education, Wagner College, Staten Island, NY and B.S. in Astronomy, The Ohio State University – Columbus, Ohio).
Sheldon Schafer retired in 2014 as Director Emeritus after 38 years as the Director of Education and Planetarium Curator at the Peoria Riverfront Museum. He concurrently taught the introductory astronomy course for non-science majors in the Physics Department at Bradley University from for 40 years, retiring in 2020. He continues with the museum as the volunteer curator of Peoria’s Community Solar System (the world’s most complete large-scale model of the Solar System) and volunteers for the Peoria Astronomical Society as Program Chair, and Northmoor Observatory Host.
His special interests have been archeoastronomy and astronomy education. He has traveled to numerous archeoastronomy sites in the Americas and Europe. In astronomy education, he has presented over fifty conference papers, publications and panels at meetings of the Great Lakes Planetarium Association and International Planetarium Society.
Sheldon will speak about “Archeoastronomical Astrotourism.”
We all know that expressing our interest in the hobby of astronomy can involve hours of observing and imaging, and often the acquisition of a variety of instruments to aid in those activities. However, there are other ways to express one’s interest in astronomy. For our speaker, that has included significant travel to sites of astronomical interest, such as the world’s great observatories, visiting the homes and workplaces of famous astronomers, and chasing eclipses. Tonight, he will focus on a subset of those destinations, important sites in the pre-history of astronomy, exploring the realm of archeoastronomy. To our prehistoric ancestors, knowledge of the cycles of the Sun and Moon and stars was of vital importance. Ancient civilizations had to study astronomy for several critical reasons: first, to explore the natural order of events, thus establishing a calendar; second, as an element of social and civic planning; and third, to live in harmony with cosmic powers, thus providing a grounding for their spiritual beliefs. In his talk, he will explore how the first two played out at a dozen different sites in the Americas and Europe.